| Hôtel de France.
St. Sébastien
Decbr 9 1871.

My dear Challey,

I have just copied your biography by Vermersch & sent it off to Madrid where it is to be reprinted. Paul has added a few paragraphs & suppressed one or two others for it was rather too ridiculous to give you out as a “Fouriériste temperé par Darwin”. I don’t know what the Spanish papers will reproduce; they will make I suppose some pot-pourri of their own.

—Now as regards the conduct of the Conseil Fédéral of Madrid, we fancy that in spite of its “penchant pour l’abstention” there is no Bakounism in the way. Paul had written to Madrid on the subject & was about sending off his letter, when news arrived. As Engels supposed, the Spanish workmen’s “politique d’abstention” does not at all suppose a disregard of politics, quite the contrary, c’est la politique par excellence,—la politique d’abstention. And moreover, the present | crisis once passed (Spain is always in a crisis) they mean to give over “l’abstention” & go in for politics “pour tout de bon”.

Mesa, one of the members of the Counsel of Madrid has just sent Paul a letter in which he says: “Ici, croyez-moi, la seule politique révolutionnaire, la seule digne et raisonnable pour les socialistes, comme pour les vrais républicains est la politique l’abstention; il faut avant tout séparer la classe ouvrière des vieux partis politiques; il faut les convaincre tous de conservatisme et il faut surtout, et voici la plus forte raison pour les ouvriers espagnols—éviter le contact et par là la contagion des partis bourgeois corrompus jusqu’à un degrés impossible de comprendre par quelqu’un qui n’est pas du pays …...

Une fois que nous réussirons à grouper tous les ouvriers dans un parti révolutionnaire nous abandonnerons l’abstention, soyez-en sûr et nous agirons d’après les circonstances” …....

He adds, that as regards the split that has taken place at Geneva, they regret it in every way but are quite on the side of London.—At any rate, al|though they may be in the wrong, they are not in “Bakounine’s pocket”—And as they will find out before long that l’abstention will never “form their revolutionary party” they will have to give up that unfortunate principle altogether.

As far as their past silence goes I think that they are not to blame for it. Several letters addressed to Paul have never reached us & I suppose that the post is equally in fault in your case. The paper that you announced in your letter, we never received & the “Emancipacion” that we send you today will perhaps never get to Hampstead.

In the worst case, St. Sébastien will be useful by & bye. Paul, together with a workman, Dyonisio Garcia, is going to form some sections here, for up to the present what they called “une section” consisted of public meetings in which a single man spoke, who was obliged in his own person to play the part of the government & the opposition. This speaker used to give a written paper to some confrère or other who read aloud | what he found on the sheet & then his adversary began anew— denouncing verbally to the public his own written production. On Sunday  Spitname für Paul Lafargue.
Schließen Toole is to go to Tolosa with Garcia to “organize”. They intend publishing a new paper too. The resolutions of the London Conference will be made known in any case.

Atheism is a real night-mare here. These anti-religious men are almost as bad as the “believers”. They lose the best part of their time on “converting” the pious that they never convert for these latter have too good reasons for “believing”.

A workman told Paul the other day that he had been discussing with a woman who declared that she did not believe in God or Jesus – mais la Sainte Vierge! il n’y avait réellement pas moyen de ne pas croire à la Sainte Vierge.—| I think that one must be on Spanish ground to hear things of this kind. This is what the ‘orateurs’ of the Parisian meetings used to call “croustilleux”.

 L. Lafargue an Marx, 12.12.1871.
Schließen I shall write to you again in a day or two on another subject. In the mean while give love to all at home, thank Möhmchen for her last long & interesting letter & Believe me, my dear Challey,

Always affectionately Your
Laura.

_______________________________________________

Paul wants me to copy Messa Mesa’s words on the subject of Geneva. Les voici:—

“Sur la regrettable scission qui a lieu à Genève nous y avons déjà écrit une longue lettre en leur donnant en parté tort pour ce qui peut avoir de personnel et surtout pour avoir donné publicité à des questions qui doivent toujours s’arranger en famille; je crois qu’ils écouteront notre parole franche et impartiale”.—

– Toole would like to know how the Congress of the Italian workmen ended: We read their attack on Mazzini with | much pleasure. If Engels would write a few notes on the conduct of the German workmen during the late war, Toole would get them inserted in the Spanish papers – in those of Madrid in case the St. Sebastián journal miscarried.—

Goodbye my dear Challey: let us hear how you are before long.—

P[.]S. Schnappy is much better. When he saw your likeness, he said: “Mais c’est le grand Goliath, ce petit père de Londres que je ne connais pas. Quelle grande barbe il a!”—Le petit David et le grand Goliath is one of his favourite stories together with “Le petit poulet qui faisait dans ses plumes.”

Remember us all to  Spitzname für Friedrich Engels. Zur Entstehung von Engels' Spitznamen siehe Jenny Marx (Tochter) an Familie Kugelmann. Samstag, 19. November 1870 („Engels—or as we have now dubbed him "General Staff" ...“).
Schließen the General.